


Meanwhile the world goes on

by SkippingStone



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, I hurt myself a tiny bit while wrting, as well as Jake's parents, it's bleak., peraltiago babies, the team is mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 06:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12382440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkippingStone/pseuds/SkippingStone
Summary: Jake Peralta's death is violent and quick and messy. In that order.





	Meanwhile the world goes on

**Author's Note:**

> As so often the case with my writing, the title is not mine, it's a line from Mary Oliver's poem /Wild Geese/.  
> Also, while watching for years, I have never written for b99, so the character's tone and choise of words might be a little off. I am still getting into it. Subsequently, the story is not beta'ed because I haven't found friends in the fandome yet and noone else had time. SO, if that bothers you, maybe don't start reading ;) 
> 
> Lovely! Have a fabulous time reading :)

They came to the house to ask some questions in order to strengthen the motif of their suspect. Also, hopefully, to get information on the whereabouts of the missing Liza Perez, a six year old girl that was kidnapped the night before. They did not come believing to find the child. So when they knocked and they heard a child starting to sob loudly from the inside, calling for help, their adrenaline shot in and they entered the house with force. 

They cleared the rooms. First downstairs, finding the girl in the kitchen, hiding in a kitchen cabinet. Jake stayed with her. Then upstairs, Rosa went alone. In most circumstances, this would have been the right call, but there were certain things just a little off this time around. For example, Jake was immediately more involved and subsequently more off guard when he knelt in front of the cabinet, smiling and trying to calm the young girl down, realizing that Liza was looking a lot like his oldest daughter Ruby. Which made him realize that now that they found Liza, he wouldn't make it to meet Amy in time for her OB GYN appointment. And the t-shirt the girl wore, with a Wonder Woman print on the front was the same that Ruby wore on the photo he had as a screensaver on his phone. He told her that and showed her, and she smiled a bit and Jake hoped beyond hope that this girl wasn't scared for life and that she would receive all the help the system could offer her and her mother.

Then upstairs. Rosa found a room, its walls covered in photos, and there was a lot required in order to shock her, but she was disturbed to the bones by what surrounded her and she stormed into the next room from where she called first backup and then Holt.

The one question that would haunt Rosa for the rest of her life was how they didn't hear the man enter. How he could surprise Jake so much not even his instincts had him grab for his gun. How the screams of the girl would never stop echoing against the inside of her skull. How her hands would never forget the way the warm blood pressed through her fingers or his grip on her hand needing her to hold it rather than stopping the blood from leaking out of his body.

\- - - earlier that morning - - -

“So. Ruby has turned on the TV on her own. She is watching Cartoons.” Amy tiptoed back into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She basically smiled with her whole body. “I don’t like it and we need to talk about it with her, but it means we have twenty-five minutes before we actually need to get up.” She crawled back into bed.

“Brilliant! What do we do with all that time? We can talk about the Harry Potter Fan Fiction you linked me to! Or have Sex? - Taxes? Sleep!” Jake raddled the words out while Amy ducked under his covers, they were smiling stupidly at each other.

Of course they were interrupted by a pair of small hands drumming against their bedroom door and a tiny voice calling for ‘Mamma’ and ‘Daaha’. 

“We lowered down the mattress! HOW? How did she get out?” Amy pushed herself from under the covers and rolled over onto her back to her side of the bed. 

This time Jake got up walking past her and to the door, opening it up to be greeted by a big, cheesy smile that he very soon matched because there was very little chance to resist her.

“Good Morning Junebug! Thank you for the wake up call! Well appreciated.” She giggled, enjoying Jake’s silly voice and held her arms up, he gladly lifted her into his arms and walked back. 

“One day we will witness her superpowers, just you wait!” He said smiling at Amy, throwing June onto his side of the bed, all the while she was happily giggling, then as fast as she could, crawled back to Jake to be lifted back up again and thrown once more. It was after the fourth time that Amy intervened because the wobbling of the mattress made her dizzy and she was so glad to finally be out of the first trimester and not be sick all of the time. 

She draw the little girl into her arms and at first she tickled her but soon she turned to cuddling. Jake had resumed the position beside them and with joint effort and a song, they calmed the hyper child down, knowing very well that hyping her up was their fault in the first place. 

“Do we tell everyone right after the appointment today and just celebrate on Sunday, or do we wait till Sunday altogether?” Amy asked. She only looked up shortly from slowly caressing June’s soft brown hair and smiling at her warmly. 

“We made it so far without anyone knowing this time! Let’s wait till Sunday and then send an ultrasound picture during lunch to everyone's phone and see who sees it first!” Jake suggested enthusiastically. 

“Perfect!” 

\- - - 

“Hey sweetheart, my name is Jake, this is Rosa.” Jake smiled and pointed over to Rosa. The girl, still crying, followed his hand. “We are police officers. We are here to help you.” 

Rosa nodded into their direction and signaled him that she would go upstairs. He nodded back and directed his attention back to the girl. 

“Do you want to tell me your name?” He knew the name, it was Liza Perez, she was five years old. She had been kidnapped from her mother’s car while she was waiting outside of a drugstore. There were no witnesses. 

Liza shook her head. Jake smiled.

“That’s all right. I am a stranger. I tell my kids to not tell strangers their names either.” He did not mention that he taught them to not talk to strangers in general. It would probably distract the purpose here. The thought entered his head that he wouldn't make it in time to meet Amy, he would have to call her as soon as backup arrived. Most likely she was already on her way to the doctor, a string of thoughts joined that first one and somewhere in-between happiness started to simmer in the pit of his stomach and he knew that was the call to ban the distraction from his mind no matter how passing they were in nature.

“Who is this on your T-Shirt? My daughter Ruby has the same one, but I forgot. Sometimes I am very silly.” He got up a bit to fumble for his cellphone in his pocket. He touched the screen to reveal the photo in which Ruby actually wore the same Wonder Woman shirt. What a crazy coincidence. He turned it to face her which instantly warmed the girl up.

“It's Wonder Woman!” the girl smiled and started to stroke her hands over her chest. Looking up and down and up again. “Does she also like Wonder Woman?”

“Yes! She does! Wait. I have another picture.” He was confident he would get her out of the cabinet within the next few minutes. 

But then everything turned to bullshit. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, his cell-phone fell from his hands and he turned in the same moment the shouting started.

“GET UP! GET AWAY FROM HER! HANDS UP! HANDS UP OR I WILL SHOOT YOU. I WILL SHOOT YOU! BUT HER FIRST, WORTHLESS BITCH!”

It escalated so quickly he barely had time to react. The gun which at first was pointed to his face suddenly turned to the girl, who still sat in her tiny space, suddenly shocked into complete silence. She didn't even cry, probably didn't breath. He stepped in front of her and towards the gunman.

“I need you to calm down.” He said on the verge of panic himself but with as much professionalism as the moment required.. He saw Rosa turning the corner. Several things happened almost simultaneously, none of them he registered. Not the first two bullets hitting him. Not the screaming, nor the shouting. Or Rosa's shot or the fumbling of handcuffs, the breaking of bones, Liza melting into an ear piercing scream.

The next thing he knew was him trying to drag in a breath and feeling as if he had been underwater too long. When the breathing didn't work, panic settled into every fiber of his body. There was pain - the blinding kind, almost turning his vision white but it didn't last, it buzzed around and cooled down and he thought he might be able to focus, he wasn't though. Suddenly Rosa's face appeared over him.

“This is baahd, Rosa. This... ss bad.” His tongue didn't work and he didn't understand how he could talk when he couldn't breath.

“STAY WITH ME JAKE. DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES. NO!! NOOONONONO!” He wasn't aware of closing his eyes. Why was she shouting so loud? Was she shouting? He was dizzy. And he still couldn't breath and it occurred to him that he might die over this inability to breath.

Suddenly, his senses were overwhelmed by Amy, all bodily memory was activated at once. He could smell her and hear her voice and his heart burst with bone-crushing fear of never being with her again, of dying and of love, and his arms suddenly remembered holding Ruby for the first time, he very specifically felt June gripping his finger, strong and almost urgent. And he didn't want to be alone. He didn't want to die alone. He couldn’t die, not yet. There was the new baby. He promised to be a good Dad. He couldn’t be a good Dad if he was dead. All of it came crashing around him at once.

His hand blindly searched for Rosa's hand, he found her arm and followed it downwards until he reached her hand which was pressing to his chest, he didn't feel that, he didn't feel much at all. He couldn't drag her hands from him. 

“Please hold on, Jake. You need to hold on. Focus on Amy and Ruby and June.” But he did. He promised he did. Of course he did. He tried, so hard.

“Lov- sooo muc-” He wished he could just breath in properly. It made him so dizzy. It made him sick and suddenly his mouth tasted of blood and then there was a lot of it on his tongue and he panicked, he tried to breath and panicked more and he didn't realize he was coughing and then his whole entire chest started to scream in pain- more pain- and the need for oxygen. He needed help. Someone please help him. He needed to tell Rosa to tell Amy how important she was. He needed to breath. Heaven, he needed... to... breath-

\- - - 

‘wont make it’ said the massage Amy got in answer to her two unanswered calls. It should have puzzled her but it didn’t, not at first. She was late for the appointment anyway and waiting for Jake in front of the clinic had made it worse, so she tried to tell herself that he must have a very good reason to not be here. It had always been hard for her to reason fairly while pregnant. 

She tried to call again after the check up, and again while she sat in the car in the underground carpark of the 78th precinct. ‘Everything is good. Baby is healthy. Please call me as soon as you can. Love you.’ She send along the newest ultrasound picture before she made her way upstairs. 

“Sergeant, the Captain needs to speak to you.” Helena stood in front of her the moment she stepped out of the elevator. And maybe that was when a sinking feeling set in, but she continued to overplayed it. 

All sense of composure, however, was lost when she entered the office and Captain Holt stood beside the desk, Captain Finnemore whom she expected was not present.

“What is wrong? WHY ARE YOU HERE? IS IT JAKE? WHERE IS HE? WHAT HAPPENED? TELL ME WHERE MY HUSBAND IS!!!” 

She didn’t understand what possessed her to lose her shit so utterly from one second to the next, not in the moment it happened. Not when Captain Holt had caught her arms and pushed her into a chair in front of the desk. Not when she had felt the whole extent of her world being crushed to dust even before he had delivered the news of her devastating new reality. But then again, it hadn’t mattered at all during those freakishly hurtful instances of time that passed while she sat there and listened to her friend explaining why Jake would never call her back. 

Later, after she had pierced the hours back together, after she had reconstructed every feeling of hers, as well as minute by minute the moments between them leaving for work in the morning and her entering the captain’s office in the early afternoon, it had started to make more sense. (At least that was what she told herself. Would tell herself for some time to come.)

For example how she kissed him twice before leaving, thinking it was especially important today. 

Or him fooling around on the couch with Ruby as if there was all the time in the world left, when they were late for leaving the house, anyway. 

They texted each other the newest pictures of the girls somewhere between half ten and eleven and Jake had called very briefly to tell her of the case, concealed as a request to have backup on the back-burner, as the man they were about to question was close to the 78th precinct’s perimeter. It was eleven then, and there was absolutely no evidence why backup could have been necessary. He told her he loved her twice. (They had learned to be very good in separating their love and family life from the workplace. Not on this day.)

That overwhelming sense of nausea capturing her for a fraction of a moment when she stood in the elevator on her way down to her car before leaving for the clinic. It matched ruffly his TOD.

‘won’t make it’ had never been in any way, shape or form the tone with which they communicated. Not even when they were minutes away from a drug bust. No message was more appropriate than that. She had learned afterwards that it had been Rosa texting and that Jake had been dead at that point.

It was easier to pretend that his death had hung heavily in the air all morning like humidity as the foreboding of bad weather, than giving fate the benefit of the doubt. Alternatively, they were simply very happy on that day, and maybe their self-evaluation of how good they managed private and work life was a little bit off and they send around pictures of their babies all the time and today was just one of the days their enthusiasm got the better of them. They were expecting a new baby after all, and they were happy about it, it was okay to be enthusiastic in such circumstances.

\- - -

When Rosa entered the fourth floor bullpen through the staircase and not the elevator there was almost nobody there. Two perps were in the waiting cell, she didn't notice them. But she noticed Gina sitting on Jake's desk without her phone in hand, just sitting and staring ahead. She silently walked towards her. Gina had a stack of clothes sitting in front of her and the photos of Amy and the girls turned down. When she was only a couple of feet away from her, she turned around and stood up in the same moment, lifting the clothes into her arms. 

They didn't speak while they made their way into the showers. The locker room was empty. They didn't speak when Rosa, with shaking hands covered in dry brown blood, unzipped the raincoat revealing the full extent of having lain in a puddle of her best friend's blood. They also didn't speak when Gina unbuttoned her aubergine-colored blouse or her slacks, which stuck to her skin. They both closed their eyes, understanding what it indicated. They didn't speak when Gina draw a chair close to the shower to sit down, crossing her arms and legs, or when Rosa opened her bra and stepped out of her underwear before she stood in front of the running water for minutes and minutes, the fog getting heavier and heavier in the room, while she stared at her hands.

“Get it over with. It's shit, believe me, I know. You can't dwell in it though, it’s not gonna turn back time.”

It were the only words Gina would speak all day, all week... however the words would echo within the walls of the room and Rosa's skull long after the dark pink water had run down the drain, joining New York's gutter. The words would stay with her and help her survive on days Jake no longer was able to.

\- - -

Karen insisted on sitting Shiva. Amy was okay with it, it was time she could spend with Ruby and June. Realistically, she didn’t want or needed anything else.

In answer to that, Charles cooked. Gina tore half her wardrobe to actual shreds to make a Keriah, because nothing felt right, nothing could be broken in just the same way that her heart was tearing. She didn’t care for the reason it was done in the first place, it was a way to express herself and that was important for everyone that could theoretically stop her but didn’t. 

Terry ate, so Charles cooked more. Hitchcock was there because Scully was there and Scully cried a lot. Rosa worked the case. The perpetrator was one thing, finding every piece of evidence there was and opening all the cold cases that might just stand in any connection, another. There were children to avenge after all. It’s what Jake would have done. It’s what they would have done together. So that’s what she did, relentlessly. 

Captain Holt and Kevin came in the morning and left at night. Holt told a story a day. Kevin was mostly kind and patient and helpful. Roger came by on day one after the funeral and never came back. 

\- - -

Jake's death was violent and quick and messy. In that order. Violent first because between him choking on his own blood and the shock from losing so much blood in the first place, there was no way for Rosa to tell which got to him first. Quick because the shots still rang in her ears when she screamed out in absolute horror upon realizing that all the pain had left his eyes and all the tension had left his muscles and all life had left his body. It was messy simply because all the blood that was sticking to her fingers and to her slacks and also to her memories and her dreams for years and years to come. 

Her hand was cradling his face, leaving behind an almost grotesque symbol of hope and friendship and love. At one point she had slid to her side, lying down beside the body, closer than she had ever been to him outside of the occasional and almost always accidental hug, her hand still on his cheek. It was so that she could give her heart the time to break, while there were sirens coming closer in the distance. She would never remember this detail once the moment had passed in which her heart had sufficiently and irrevocably lost a piece so very vital to her being.

And when, later, she would ever consider if the madness was getting to her, she would always remember this moment. It was so very isolated in time. When she was lying there, that little girl Jake saved still cowering in the kitchen cabinet; she would remember how cold she was, how she had started to shake. She had never been so cold in her life, before or after. It was the moment when a part of her self had suffered so deeply it could never recovered.


End file.
